We’ve been trawling the internet of late for some comedy takes on Shakespeare to share on the NoSweatShakespeare facebook page, and slowly but surely have stumbled across the internet sub-culture of “memes”. Warning: 30 second internet culture/patronizing lesson coming up!

Historically, a meme has meant a discrete “package of culture” that travels via word of mouth – as a joke, song, parable, story etc. – with the idea being transmitted from one person to the next. The word meme (rhymes with “beam”) comes from the Greek word “mimema” (meaning “something imitated”), and is attributed to evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins. Dawkins described memes as a being a form of cultural propogation, a way for people to transmit social memories and cultural ideas to each other.

The internet, by sheer virtue of its instant communication, is how we now spread modern memes to each other – and it offers the ability for anyone with access to a computer to generate and share memes. So, this post is a collection of the most amusing memes about Shakespeare we’ve come across (some admittedly funnier than others), created by Shakespeare lovers (and probably haters too!) around the world:

“Now is the winter of our discount tent”

Juliet hits facebook

The Romeo & Juliet rant

The original ironic

Hamlet’s soliloquy as delivered by a PC

What many a Shakespeare student has thoughts!

That’s your lot for now. We’d love to update this post on a rolling basis to keep adding the best Shakespeare memes around, so please share any ideas with us in the comments section below, or on our facebook page.